Do you know anything about hackers? Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace? Never experienced the new wave? Next wave? Dream wave? OR cyberpunk? Since the dawn of computers, there have been movies and TV shows about using those computers to do…
The Good – Elite Haxors
Mr. Robot
This show follows a grey hat hacker named Elliot as he joins a hacker collective and tries to expose and take down a corrupt corporation. The interesting thing is that all of the hacks used in the show are real, accurately portrayed, and possible (to some extent). One character sleeps with a rival to gain access to his phone in order to root it to spy on the device. Another hack involves dropping virus-infected USB keys outside a prison to gain access to their network in order to break out a prisoner. (As a side note, DON’T PLUG IN USB STICKS YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE!!!!!!!) The tech consultant for the show, Michael Bazzell, says that each second of computer usage can take hours to produce to make sure it’s accurate, and that really shows.
Wargames
In this 1983 movie, Matthew Broderick uses logic and brute force dialing of phone numbers to gain access to what he thinks is a game company’s internal server. Once he suspects that the system might actually be a government server, he looks for a backdoor into the system, and spends a considerable amount of time performing research. All of the technology and tactics used are possible in that era. The only thing missing is Broderick using a Captain Crunch whistle to get free long distance.
The Bad – Script Kiddies
Jurassic Park
Uh uh uh, you didn’t say the magic word! Jurassic Park is the classic example of a writer hearing about something and writing it into the script. One of the protagonists, a teenage girl named Lex, is able to completely take over a system, simply because she recognizes “It’s a UNIX system! I know this!” Imagine if anyone who knew how to use Windows could hack into a computer. That’s ridiculous.
Leverage
Overall, Leverage isn’t a bad show, but it uses all of their characters’ abilities as a magic spell. If someone says they can do something, they do it, and it works. In one episode, Hardison, the hacker character, gets into a “hacker fight” where they literally stand in a parking lot with keyboards typing without breaking eye contact. Awesome.
Breaking In
This short lived series, also staring Mr. Robot’s Christian Slater, is about a security consulting company that performs penetration testing for clients in effort to close security holes. Skills are always over-the-top portrayals, almost never actually within the realm of possibility. In one episode, the team tries to steal a painting to show a weakness in an art museum’s security system, and the entire effort of the hacker character is to announce “I hacked the security system.” He is incredulous when it turns out a rival con man, with no computer experience, “hacked him back.” So basically, it’s the level of two kids playing imaginary wizard battles on the playground.
Ugly – Mess With the Best, Die Like the Rest!
Swordfish
I can ignore the part where Hugh Jackman tries to hack the FBI by giving it a long list of password guesses with a gun to his head. But pretty much the entire rest of the movie involves him “building” a virus that moves money. It looks like a great puzzle game for phones that someone should make! But it’s nothing like hacking.
Hackers
Hackers is an envisioning of 1980s cyberpunk through the fashion sense of the 1990s. Virtual Reality, making servers spark and catch fire, and breaking through huge software barriers with weird flying 3-D interfaces all to stop an actual supervillain plotting to hold the world hostage? This movie has it all.
NCIS / CSI
If you google “Hacking on TV”, you’ll see a scene from NCIS in which two people use one keyboard at the same time. They are flanked by two people eating lunch. The problem is solved by unplugging the computer, which is probably among the most realistic response to a hack on TV.
Also on the awful list: CSI’s worst spinoff, CSI Cyber (now canceled). It seemed to have been made by writing words heard on the news about cybercrime onto pieces of paper, and using them as plot points.
Oh, and in case you didn’t get the intro?